Sunday, July 31, 2016

Top clerics reject state decree for unified prayer sermons

Al-Azhar says that directive to follow ministry sermons does not apply to its preachers

Monday, July 25, 2016

Mai Shams El-Din

Anger over the decision to unify the Friday
sermon throughout Egypt’s mosques has extended from ministry to imams to
the leadership of Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar whose deputy last week
said that the directive to imams to read ministry-issued sermons does
not apply to Al-Azhar preachers.

“Al-Azhar was not officially notified about what is being reported on the written sermon,” Abbas Shouman wrote in a statement
on his Facebook page last week. “It is not binding to Al-Azhar
preachers, who are provided with a library enabling them to pass on
their knowledge. This is apart from the fact there is a careful process
through which the preachers were selected and the experience most of
them have gained through preaching locally and internationally.”

Earlier
this month, the Ministry of Endowments announced the formation of a
committee to draft Friday sermons to be distributed to imams across the
country, after it had previously moved to unify the topics of each
sermon but left the articulation of their particular points to
individual imams.

In its statement, the ministry said the decision
aims to facilitate imams’ work and guarantee the optimum delivery of
the salient points of assigned topics. The ministry justified its move
with harsh criticism of imams’ delivery of Friday sermons.

A
member of Al-Azhar’s Council of Senior Scholars told privately owned
Al-Watan newspaper that the minister is attacking Al-Azhar scholars and
lamented the ministry’s position.

“The ministry’s position saddens me,” Mahmoud Mehanna said.
“Engaging in conflict with Al-Azhar will negatively affect the country.
Egypt is worth nothing without Al-Azhar, it is what brought Islam to
the six continents.”

Mehanna raised questions over the source from which the minister receives orders, implying security involvement.

He
added that Al-Azhar’s preachers might abandon the Endowments Ministry’s
mosques if they are bound by the decision to unify the sermons.

Head
of the ministry’s Quranic affairs department in the Qalyubiya
directorate, Mohamed Nassar, explains that the ministry uses up to 3000
Al-Azhar preachers to give Friday sermons - on a bonus system. The
preachers also regularly give lessons in ministry mosques.

Nassar
says that the ministry took this decision on its own without consulting
with Al-Azhar, since it sees itself as a superior ministry that can take
decisions independently and enforce them on whoever preaches in its
mosques.

“The point of contention is that Al-Azhar sees the
written sermon as a step backwards with regards to religious discourse
in Egypt. Al-Azhar leaders believe that educating imams is the right
step towards renewing the country’s religious discourse.”

Nasser
expects the conflict between Al-Azhar and the Endowments Ministry to
escalate, until Al-Azhar preachers are banned from preaching in the
ministry’s mosques unless they adhere to the unified sermon.

Amr
Ezzat, religious freedoms researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for
Personal Rights, says that both sides are competing over control over
the religious scene in Egypt.

“Al-Azhar’s Sheikh has the
scientific and religious status, but the control over the religious
space is in reality and administratively in the hands of the Endowments
Ministry,” he adds.

Ezzat explains that the conflict dates back
to Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb’s participation in the June 30
alliance that ousted former President Mohamed Morsi and paved the way
for his control over the religious space after the fall of the Muslim
Brotherhood.

“Gomaa, the current minister, used to work in Tayeb’s
office and Tayeb is the one who recommended him for the Endowments
Minister position, but the competition between them intensified after
that,” he said.

The move to unify Friday sermons dates back to
2013 when the Endowments Ministry was a principal player in the struggle
between the post-June 30 regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, following
the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi. It was one of Gomaa’s first
moves, made minister in July 2013.

The ministry was working toward
controlling the religious sphere in order to disarm the Brotherhood of
one of its strongest weapons: religious discourse.

Ezzat suggests
that the diversity of Al-Azhar preachers’ political ideologies might be
the reason behind the state’s mistrust in them, as opposed to the
Endowments Ministry imams who are under its administrative control.

The
common idea that Al-Azhar represents moderate Islam, at the top of
which is the Council of Senior Scholars, with Tayeb at its head, is
misleading, he says.

“The Council of Senior Scholars is a minority
who are carefully picked,” Ezzat explains. “The majority of Azharis
belong to Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood groups, some of whom have
opposing positions to Al-Azhar and are thus not in line with either the
state or the leadership within Al-Azhar.”